Need help improving performance of the windows 7 machine.

[DavidE]

I currently use windows 7 professional x86 with 4 Gb of RAM, of which 2.96 Gb are avaialble for the user application and rest is system reserved. This machine is equiped with Intel i7 860 and powerful SAMSUNG 850 pro SSD.

There are several other PCs that are remotly conecting to this machine and once they all are connected + person being on the PCs and working some excel calculation etc lack of RAM show its face.

If I understand correctly, other users connect to YOUR PC for business/work.
Maybe you should look into getting a dedicated server for other users to connect to, so they don't use your PC.

 

[Dolke]

Hi DavidE, thank you for getting involved in this topic.

Here are some extra info...

Yes, there are 2-4 PCs all on remote locations (different cities) which use RDC in order to conect to this windows 7 machine.
All these PCs are connected in the VPN so they connect over this virtual network.

Also they usually work symultaniously which means they are working at the same time, concurent sessions.

(Dont ask me how I manage to get more then 1 user at the time over RDC... its a secret )

And yes, there is a person sitting on that computer working through out the working hours.

Yes this PC is quite loaded but usually everything is working fine. RAM is the bottleneck. 8 Gb of ram would perfectly suite my needs.

Yes server would be a great to have, but I dont have it nor do I have the funds to buy one, at least not at this time...

 

[DavidE]

Yes this PC is quite loaded but usually everything is working fine

It would probably help you if you post screen prints of Task Manager, Resource Monitor, etc. so we can see what you have running when you have performance problems.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

 

[torchwood]

1gb

Hi Dolke,
Just a thought the loss of the 1GB+, is down to the allocated dedicated RAM for the Graphics card.
On your other machines is there a compatible card that has less, mine only takes 400MB, that you could swop it with???

Roy

 

[Dolke]

I have stand alone graphics... I7 860 doesnt have the graphics chip as part of CPU package.

Im not sure that I can do what you are suggesting... :huh:

P.S.

Graphic card currently in the machine is:

ATI Radeon HD 4350.

 

[AddRAM]

I`m sure it`s already been said, but you can only put the fastest ram that the board will support, (for instance) if you put in PC2-6400, but the motherboard only supports PC2-5300, then the motherboard will only run the memory at 5300 speed.

The motherboard specs should tell you all you need to know

And as always, don`t be afraid to AddRAM

 

[Dolke]

As I said, Im not sure that adding more the 4Gb of ram on a 32bit system can do anything...

Regarding the speed my mobo supports up to 16gb one of these DDR3 1066/1333/1600*/2000*/2133*

Im guessing * means I need to update the Bios in order to use those...

Right now I have 2 x 2 Gb of PC3 10700 whish is I guess DDR3 1066.

How significant preformance gain would be usage of DDR3 2133 instead of DDR3 1066...of course same amount 4 Gb?

 

[AddRAM]

You won`t notice much of a difference.

Have you ever even tried to install these programs on a 64 bit system ? Because Windows 7 has a folder for 32 and 64 bit.

 

[Dolke]

Program doesnt work on windows 7 x64. Its cant be used on 64 bit platform.

Check, double checked, cheked with the vendor as well... cant be used

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Well I still reckon say 6GB RAM on that machine would be worth a try because even if it opens up the tiniest bit more memory. It is going to cost you not much at all and if say it gives you 4GB usable rather than 2.96GB then surely (it makes sense to me at least) and get the max speed RAM as the machine will support as Addram has said.

What have you got to lose??

 

[Barman58]

Well I still reckon say 6GB RAM on that machine would be worth a try because even if it opens up the tiniest bit more memory. It is going to cost you not much at all and if say it gives you 4GB usable rather than 2.96GB then surely (it makes sense to me at least) and get the max speed RAM as the machine will support as Addram has said.

What have you got to lose??

The system is at it's maximum available memory limit due to the requirement to retain a 32bit architecture, adding 2GB or 200GB, (I know this is not possible), would not change that at all,

As one reason for not updating the software to allow use of 64 Bit architecture is cost, simply throwing money at the problem is not a viable solution

 

[Dolke]

Thats true.

In that case I will probably go for another 2 x 2 Gb of the same brand and get 8 Gb...

Its not big investment and its worth trying. Thank you for the suggestion.

 

[Barman58]

Well I still reckon say 6GB RAM on that machine would be worth a try because even if it opens up the tiniest bit more memory. It is going to cost you not much at all and if say it gives you 4GB usable rather than 2.96GB then surely (it makes sense to me at least) and get the max speed RAM as the machine will support as Addram has said.

What have you got to lose??

The system is at it's maximum available memory limit due to the requirement to retain a 32bit architecture, adding 2GB or 200GB, (I know this is not possible), would not change that at all,

As one reason for not updating the software to allow use of 64 Bit architecture is cost, simply throwing money at the problem is not a viable solution

One thing I would check is the BIOS.

Check to ensure that any on-board graphics is actually switched off, most systems will use any installed discrete graphics over internal, but may not actually switch off the onboard graphics ant it's use of memory

The reason I suggest this is I have just checked my system and it shows a system reserved amount of Approximately 18MB, OK that is on a 64Bit system with 32GB of ram with a discreet Graphics Card but is far less that the system in question with the issue

 

[Dolke]

Before I upgraded to i7 860 I had i3 540

i3 540 CPU has graphics chip within the CPU package so I didnt have descreete graphics card.
i7 860 CPU doesnt have graphics chip within the CPU package and motherboard doesnt have the chip either.

So I put the descreete graphics.

Still system only shows 2.96Gb available. Its really low amount. If I can somehow get it to 3.5Gb that would be improvement.

P.S.

BIOS is not the latest. I might try update the BIOS first although everything is working properly.

 

[DavidE]

So I put the descreete graphics.

Still system only shows 2.96Gb available. Its really low amount. If I can somehow get it to 3.5Gb that would be improvement.

For Windows 32 Bit, it's not only a max 4 GB RAM limit, it's also a 4 GB Address Space limit.
Adding a GPU with built in VRAM will not increase the amount of RAM available to Windows.
Having PC with 4 GB RAM and adding a GPU with .5 GB VRAM will not give you 4.5 GB Address Space (RAM) in Win 32 Bit.

You can go through all your BIOS settings and disable everything you don't need, such as a Floppy Drive, Parallel Port, etc.
You can also adjust the amount of memory used wherever possible.
The settings available depend on what your motherboard offers, you have to take time and find what you can do, and test any changes.

 

[Dolke]

I see.

Thank you for the suggestions.

I will try these settings and I might upgrade BIOS to a newest version.

P.S.

Is there some other features that people usually disable in order to increse amout of avaialbe RAM iin window 7?

Of course disable those should be safe and not to influence stability of the system.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You could check out what services you have running and consider turning some of them off, particularly non-Microsoft services.

There are web sites that will tell you which services you can safely turn off, but many would say that those web sites are not reliable and that turning off any particular service may have unintended consequences because services can be dependent on each other to an extent.

 

[Dolke]

So basically non of those lets call them tweaks is not reliablie and can cause system not be stable.

I will check those BIOS settings but I really dont have the habit of turning such services on and off.

I think one should really understand to the bottom what hes doing and I dont know that Im one of them in most of the time.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

The system is at it's maximum available memory limit due to the requirement to retain a 32bit architecture, adding 2GB or 200GB, (I know this is not possible), would not change that at all,

Yes Nigel my reasoning was just that the 4GB was maxed out and it might be increased that tiny bit or even the memory loaded more evenly - through more chips being available.

Dolke did you say you tried the optimise tutorial?

 

[Dolke]

I did try the tut but honestly I didnt go through all of the steps just yet.

I found another interesting thing... I noticed that RDC sessions (some of them) use more resources then others.

For example, I have 6 user accounts on this machine. When 2 of those users connect remotely via RDC Skype loads on these and thats something totally unnessesary. These RDC sessions should be "flat" meaning only needed services should run...

Is there a way to optimize those(RDC sessions)?